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This is how I’ve seen it with Punk: The whole Punk thing isn’t like when Daniel Bryan got unfairly fired after the original Nexus attack, or when Hardy got sent home after the whole Edge and Lita thing. This was Punk being unhappy and leaving on his own and not wanting to serve out the rest of his contract.

Look back at Punk’s pipebomb. He was mad that he wasn’t in the pre-show montage. They put him in. He was mad about not being the top guy. They gave him a record-breaking run as WWE champ. He was mad that he wasn’t booked on late-night TV talk shows and asked to do all the promotional stuff. Fast forward a few years and he’s “exhausted” because they’re working him to death doing all this with no rest.

Granted he’s not as high up on the card as he should be, but he’s still living a dream that 99.9999% of wrestlers in history wish they could. Ask Ziggler if he’d be ok getting the WWE title for a year, 20 minutes of mic time, matches against the Rock and Undertaker on PPV, top feuds against Triple H and the Authority, 10 new t-shirts a year etc. Ask Sandow if he’d be ok with that. Ask ANYONE not named John Cena and they’d say YES.

Punk left on his own and honestly the whole thing seems ungrateful if anything. I’ve always been a Punk fan (hell I have a CM Punk action figure on my desk in my office at work) and I’d love to see him back, but crowds shouldn’t crap on the wrestlers that are actually sticking around in favor of a guy that doesn’t wanna be there.

He was on Kimmel in a 10+ minute skit, so he got that too. I can’t get my head around the whole Punk situation. Who are the crowds mad at? They’re mad at WWE but it’s misdirected. They should be pissed at Punk for leaving them.

Something tells me that Punk isn’t going to just be content with leaving wrestling behind, but will also speak of it disparagingly and mock those who like it. Like, he’s finally reached full asshole after only being at 98% asshole up until now.

Completely agree with this. Punk seems like he was going to be eternally unhappy, until he was in Cena’s position, even though he didn’t seem too fond of the WWE media machine that comes with being in Cena’s position. Hell, even Stone Cold went on some shitty day time talk shows during his peak. Punk just seemed like he wanted to be on top and still do his own thing.

Another thing I thought was interesting was that the initial rumors for Punk walking out was that he was going to put Cesaro over on that Raw. I assume that would come with some type of interference from Kane. If that story was true, think of how that makes Punk look. Cesaro would eventually go on to pin Randy Orton CLEAN on Smackdown. If Punk walked out, because he didn’t want to put Cesaro over, while Orton eventually did, it makes Punk look like more of a prima donna than internet whipping boy Randy Orton. That’s pretty sad.

From Punk’s standpoint, it has more to do with Batista’s return than anything else. From what I gathered he’s more pissed off at someone like Batista who gasses in 20 seconds winning the Royal Rumble. I can’t see him leaving the WWE because of his position on the card. He’s always been critical when it comes to guys like Batista who get everything handed to them and then they just leave few months later. Not saying him walking out was justified, eventually he ended up screwing over his friend and making things more complicated than what are. Bryan had to be inserted to a feud that was tailor made for Punk and while they did turn Batista hell, Punk had no way of knowing that would happen.

With that being said, he’s coming back because everyone comes back eventually and people have left under worst circumstances. The McMahons may be stubborn but they hardly ever completely close doors especially when it comes to making money. Punk is too proud and stubborn to just leave wrestling completely, so they’ll kiss and make-up if they haven’t already. In the meantime the WWE will continually use the “Is Punk returning” rumors to spark ratings.

Punk himself even joked in a promo back in ROH that he’s a wrestler and wrestlers lie and exaggerate and that he’ll retire and comeback multiple time because that’s what pro wrestlers do.

I thought the fact that the crowd got really into a good portion of the show was the best rebuke of the #HijackRaw shit. Most of these fans are such genuinely passionate wrestling fans that they went to the show ready to just chant for this one guy, and then got TRICKED into having a great time anyway. I’ll take these stupid assholes and their loud, frequently-swayed-from-single-mindedness energy over Green Bay’s Husky-Harris-chanting sitting-on-their-hands stupid assholes last week. At least there’s a zest to these idiots.

To be fair, the first half of Raw this week saw a pitch-perfect promo from Heyman, the Usos winning the tag titles after a seemingly year-long struggle, the Authority getting some of the craziest heat ever (in the middle of an outstanding promo), and the rematch of Shield vs Wyatts (which included a surprising tease at a turn from Rollins and Ambrose and Reigns coagulating as a boss tag team). During last week, the first half of Raw was pretty forgettable, with Hogan shilling the network, a Del Rio/Batista rematch, and a Cesaro-Big E non-finish.

As much as I love my town, I can assure you that EVERY event I have EVER been to since the inception of Lawler’s catchphrase has a decent segment of “PUPPIES” chanters. Usually they get drowned out or someone (myself and people who bring their small children to enjoy the show) gives them the death glare/REALLY? enough they stop.

So as much as I’ll defend Chicago till the end of time, we really really need THOSE GUYS to knock it off. Now. For reals. I mean it.

“He’s still an amazing talker because I buy him as a legit sociopathic bully”

Thank you! I have so many arguments with people about Brock on the mic. He stumbled over a couple of words here and there in the past, but people calling him “awful on the mic” confuse me. There’s people saying they brought in Heyman to talk for him because he is so bad, when Brock made WWE hire Heyman because he didn’t like talking.

Brock is a good trash-talker, and definitely seems like the type of guy who likes to intimidate people for the hell of it.

They did the same thing at Wrestlemania 9. When Giant Gonzalez was standing in the ring after they took the Undertaker away on the stretcher, they started chanting for Hogan as well. Even as a young pup I never understood why they would do that.

The Hogan thing, I think, is a case of the crowd chanting for the top face to come out and save the day. Who was a giant slayer (no pun intended), who could conquer guys even the Undertaker couldn’t, if not Hogan?

Let’s be realistic here: If Cena loses to Bray at ‘Mania, what it the certainty that Rusev attacks him on the Raw after, they build a bullshit fued and Cena beats Rusev handily at Extreme Rules to “get his heat back” after losing to Bray. Umaga, Tensai, Swagger, Sheamus, Mark Henry half-a-dozen times…

They’ve done well with building up the Shield and to a lesser extent The Wyatts, but I’m not gonna throw in for Rusev until he’s past his monster-debut/fed-to-Cena-within-a-month/ridiculous-“silly-dancing-foreigner”-semi-burial/mid-card-tag-team-to-slowly-rebuild-relevance phase.

I will never understand why Paul Bearer scared me so much more than Undertaker, but MAN he was good at his job.

I think I was convinced as a kid that if Paul Bearer touched you, he’d get your soul, or your power? I don’t know. I knew SOMETHING horrible would happen and as a result I was scared to even boo him. I remember being at a show, looking at him and praying he wouldn’t look at me. Because what if he mind controlled me?! Or stole my soul?

Maggle. Maggle! MAGGLE! MAGGLE!!!! COME ON MAGGLE!!!!!! SPIN AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES, MAGGLE!!!!!!!!! THE TALENT IS TERRIBLE AND YOU SHOULDN’T ENJOY WATCHING THEM PERFORM, MAGGLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’M THE GENERAL MANAGER OF A BUNCH OF REALLY SHITTY TALENTS, MAGGLE!

He went from tough, bad ass who was a player in ECW to walking punchline so that Vince could have a stupid storyline where Hornswaggle was his son and it was embarrassing because Horswaggle is short, so REASONS and LAUGHTER. I seem to recall on a few occasions him being referred to as a fat leprechaun or some shit.

First off, getting any reaction is their job and as Brandon said, they don’t care if you hate what they want you to love or vice versa. If you make noise, they will spin it as a good thing. And secondly, how the fuck have HHH or Stephanie failed to earn their heat? H is the biggest dick bag in the world standing across from the Best Wrestler in the World and keeping him down, and Stephanie was more of a devil than her god damn father when dealing with the Big Show, and she brought some of that back on Raw. Even if they didn’t deserve it going in, they earned it in one segment.

You did a much better job explaining your position on #hijackraw here than you did on twitter, at least from the responses that I read. Obviously you have a lot more than 140 characters at your disposal here but man were you being obnoxious yesterday.

The Chicago crowd was basically good, certainly better than the crowds that are silent and/or chant Husky Harris, Goldberg, etc

Gotta disagree. Silence is death to WWE. Any reaction is gold to them, but silence scares them. If a crowd doesn’t like something, better to treat it like it doesn’t exist than to boo it. And was the crowd any better for chanting for Punk (who is a total asshole if this isn’t a work (though i still believe it could be and skipping Chicago is to really fool the fans)) instead of chanting Husky or Goldberg? I don’t think so. I think they were just as bad as any other shit crowd.

Completely agree with your assessment, Brandon. As someone in attendance last night, I was kind of ashamed to be a Chicago wrestling fan. There were some great elements of crowd interaction; like when everyone was duel chanting for The Shield and Wyatts, because it actually felt like something that everyone organically cared about. Secondly the brief moment where everyone realized that Dolph would be with Aaron Paul and we had a reasonable Jesse-Pinkman chant going..but aside from those two situations, the rest was really rough.

Whether it was the guys to my right trying to get Puppies/CM Punk going during the Divas match or the same idiots trying to get a Benoit chant going for the entirety of the Christian/Sheamus match, it came damn close to ruining the experience as a whole.

The cherry on top of course was the jamoke who had to be restrained by his friends when he started harassing everyone around him for not turning their backs to the Bryan-Orton match. It was baffling, why would someone spend over $100 to ignore something and then try to fight people who don’t agree with you? It’s baffling.

Side note – Even fucking Road Dogg called us out for our lack of creativity during the dark spot of their match and the crowd was silent. Just a brutal showing on our part.

@Thrillhouse, I’ll say it again, as a guy who attended just about every WWF/E live show from SummerSlam 94 through the RAW last September of the 11 vs. SHIELD elimination match before moving out of state, this did not sound like the normal fun, ‘rasslin-loving Chicago crowd I’ve loved dearly.

It sounded like it was injected heavily by that group of douchebags trying to emulate the post-WrestleMania 28 and 29 RAW crowds trying to purposefully shit on things for the sake of shitting on things because D-Bry is getting buried or whatever.

Anyway: How did your Jericho jackets turn out? I kept an eye out when the camera showed the upper deck, but didn’t see them.

That’s the perfect way of putting it, exactly. The jackets were fine, but we were mostly cut off from the camera side by that red flashing portion of the walk out ramp, above where the mustang drove out. You can see us for a couple seconds over the shoulder of D-Bry during his promo with Stephanie & Trips, but that was about it.

Exactly why I wasn’t upset I couldn’t go. I knew we were going to be a rowdy crowd, simply because everyone wants SOME type of concrete answer on Punk. But when the hijack thing got going, I was glad I wasn’t in attendance to see them ruin our rep. because damned if I’m going to follow some bullshit rules about who I’m going to cheer for.

Loved the take-down of the #hijackRAW. Also enjoyed watching last night to see exactly how the WWE just took the whole ‘movement’ and used it to further their own product. It was amazing to watch.

(Of course, I’m coming from a perspective that’s okay with the Bryan vs. HHH at Wrestlemania. Fom a story standpoint, putting Bryan up against the show’s Big Bad* feels just as important as a title shot, and I think matches that don’t have titles on the line can be just as “big” as those that do. Most of the best matches from the past year — Shield vs. Wyatts, Zayn vs. Cesaro, the Rhodes family fighting for their jobs — felt important because they played on the psychology of the characters, not because there were belts at stake).

Supplementary Best to whoever decided to make Alex Riley one of the analysts on the Raw pre- and post-shows. I think he actually has a chance to excel in that role. And the dude can wear the hell out of a suit.

Feel free to skip this comment. It’s long, and I acknowledge that I am person-who-posts-too-much-in-With-Leather-WWE-open-threads Lester and my opinion about this means nothing in the world outside of my own head.

I think there’s another reason to chant CM Punk than “look at me, look at what I’m doing” (although I think that applies to a lot of the #HijackRaw participants).

Ostensibly, Punk’s reasons for quitting the company are the same things we all wish were different about WWE. Obviously none of us know what’s really going on in Punk’s head, but the easy narrative of his departure is that he’s dissatisfied with how WWE is run, the way it prioritises returning Big Names and celebrities over the regular roster, the tenacity with which they cling to the increasingly unsatisfying status quo, the maddening, seemingly willingly-knucklebrained decision making of the people who run the company we all love and wish would be better. Etc, etc, ice cream bars.

But like he said in his pipebomb, he was just a spoke on the WWE wheel, and it has continued to spin in his absence.

The urge to chant CM Punk – and to hijack Raw, I guess, before it got twisted into the hashtagged monstrosity we saw last night – is an urge to stop the wheel. To say, “He was right. Those things that made him leave are a problem for us, too. Change direction. Don’t keep going down this path that makes our favourite spokes fall off.”

Whether or not Punk actually left for those reasons is kind of beside the point now. The Punk shaped hole in the roster is a symbol of dissatisfaction with the current product.

That’s my take on it, anyway. There are two reasons! The unfortunate former doesn’t invalidate the earnest latter for me.

If he’s upset that WWE has continued in his absence, maybe he should learn how wrestling or existence works.

Any philosophical musings about Punk being held down or pushed out or whatever, all of those work on an intellectual level about Daniel Bryan too, and not only is that something that happened in real life while CM Punk was becoming the biggest thing around, but it’s something that’s happening in a MAIN EVENT STORYLINE *RIGHT NOW*. Pay attention to that!

Pop, the guy went from feuding with Rock, Taker, Jericho, and Lesnar to Curtis Axel and Ryback in 2013. If that isn’t a steep dropoff, I don’t know what is. Despite his stellar ratings gains and merch sales, the guy couldn’t even get a main event match on PPV over Kane/Cena or Johnny/Cena in 2012.

I agree with Lester. I don’t see the Punk chants as “Hey, bring him back” (not JUST that, anyway). I see as shorthand for “That guy was right, and just because he’s gone doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten there are still problems.”

And Schmanthony, I don’t think anyone said Punk was upset that WWE kept rolling. He just stated it as a fact in his pipebomb promo– he, like everyone else, is just a spoke in the wheel.

What I love about Brock is he really does see Paul Heyman as stupid because he thinks the notion of someone using words to convey thoughts and emotions is stupid when Brock could just be kicking ass and screaming to let you know how much ass he will in fact kick.

Brandon, do we know for a fact that Punk left because he was disgruntled about creative? There are a lot of other things that WWE is doing that may be screwing over the wrestlers. WWE Network is going to minimize their compensation by changing how much they get from PPV bonuses. How is all the new TV and WWE Network money going to trickle down to performers? Punk’s frustration with WWE may have been more than just what creative had for him.

These Hijack Raw fools are the bastardized heirs of the old ECW crowds. I always thought ECW crowds were a little overrated and sometimes a bit obnoxious, but at their best, they made good matches great, etc. Look at RVD-Jerry Lynn from Halloween Havoc. In 15 minutes, that crowd evolved from a collective dismissive wanking motion in Lynn’s direction to calling him the NEW F’CKING SHOW! It was amazing.

Fast forward 15 years and you have this. A dismissive wank that doesn’t bother to be dismissive. These guys thought they were channeling the old ECW spirit that made stars out of guys like Mikey Whipreck and Spike Dudley and Yoshihiro Tajiri. But in reality they’re more like the awful nu-metal bands that think that because they know all the chords to Weezer’s Blue Album, they can make something that good themselves.

Of course the irony in all this is that the last time I remember a “smart” crowd getting worked this badly was when Brian Pillman showed up in ECW.

I’ll add another thumbs up to your assessment of the masturbatory crowd behavior. Also, Uber-Heel Triple H is honestly amazing and I’d much rather see Daniel Bryan earn his grudging respect via Knee+ at Wrestlemania than have him win the belt only to drop it to Big Dave when G of the G hits theaters.

I see the best route being H eating a big loss and sending someone other than Dave after Bryan to kill him and keep him away from the belt till around Summerslam. Then this one year cycle comes to a head as Bryan FINALLY gets his match against Batista (who should be about done with his press cycle) and boom, we are all happy with D-Bry as champ, Batista ran his media and can blood feud with whoever in a filler mid-card role, and Bryan continues to kick ass at the top of the card.

Maybe there could be a way for The Shield to go after Dave since it’s an injustice that he just walked into a Wrestlemania title match? It could get The Shield back on the same page (Friends make up after a fight in real life. Let us have this WWE.), and could be a great middle finger to their “daddy” (as Bray so eloquently inferred). Then we would have an ultimate “face” faction, and an ultimate “heel” faction. Dave would have in injury storyline so he can complete his press junkets.

Good write-up Brandon. Overall, I agree the hijackraw thing was fairly silly, and the guidelines are fairly ridiculous. WWE has already won with massive emotional investments into its characters. Nevertheless, some kind of civil disobedience would probably get management’s attention (e.g., leaving during an Orton/Cena main event, being silent like you say). Booing is a mixed bag at best. It may have forced WWE’s hand with Bootista, but Cena has been riding high on the boos at least since the WM with HHH.

As for Punk, people seem to be using motivated reasoning to support whatever conclusion they already have in their minds. Critics will say he “took his ball and went home,” he is “ungrateful,” or he “left all of his fans.” Supporters will point to his injury history, his age, and his non-use of HGH and painkillers (unlike many of his colleagues) and how that may have impacted this situation. We will fill in the gaps, but, really, no one outside of a handful of people probably really know what the deal is.

Also, going from feuding with Rock, Cena, Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar to Curtis Axel and Ryback would make anyone depressed. Over the last three years, Punk’s quarter hour ratings gains and merch sales dwarf every non-Cena full-time wrestler on the roster. Like Steve Austin in 01/02, it’s possible Punk thought management was intentionally throwing roadblocks in front of him to slow him down. On the surface, at least for a while in 2013, it looks like this may have been the case.

I’d say the deal with Punk is all of the above and more.
Punk is an asshole for real, but not horribly so. He said days before the Rumble that he wishes to close a Mania but this year should be Bryan’s (showing at least a little bit of humility).
Punk probably did have problems with creative.
Punk probably was really banged up and hurt, considering his long career and such that you mentioned.
Punk did take his ball and go home, leaving us behind for his own reasons, good or not. Frankly, I intend to forget about him. He wasn’t matching his own standards for whatever reason and he should take some time off regardless of the reason. Either physically, mentally, or both, he was off. He needs time.

Brandon, I absolutely 100% agree with your opening page rant. Wrestling is supposed to be fucking fun. That’s why we watch this thing. I don’t agree with everything that happens in terms of what happen on the show but I accept it, and not because I decide to let wwe “plow me in the ass”, but because they are the ones putting on the show, and if I just sit back, WATCH what’s happening, I may just really like it. I take rumours with less than a pinch of salt, I hate that so many people have “informed” opinions based on stuff they read on some dirt sheet and go nuts when that stuff doesn’t happen. Imagine if all Batman fans around the world heard that when the Dark Knight was released back in 2008 that there was a twist in the ending (leaked as so many of our stories are) that Joker was going to actually kill Batman at the end and that would be the end of the franchise. So we all see a kick ass movie but instead of coming out feeling satisfied we are extremely pissed off and declare war on Nolan/DC because what a couple of loud people said was going to happen didn’t happen? That is crazy. The time this pissed me off the most in wrestling was when Sheamus won the royal rumble or when Christian lost the title 5 days after losing it. Sheamus and Jericho had a very entertaining end to the match and it was a SURPRISE which people complain is lacking in wrestling these days and wwe struggle to come up with. I thought it was fucking brilliant, let’s not think about how the reign turned out but just think about the moment. It was fucking awesome. But destroyed because “he wasn’t supposed to win”. I thought he was a bland as hell face but I loved what I saw, but I was on forums telling people to enjoy the fucking show. When something happens that isn’t “supposed” to happen, as Joker said in that fine movie, “everyone loses their minds”. It was just mad. I read the spoiler when Christian lost that title and immediately thought “brilliant, heel turn, feud with a top star”. I underplayed the campaigns for this “tragedy” that happened. I love Captain charisma deeply and a soooooo happy he is on the dark(ish) side again but I loved everything that came out of that program more than hated what happened in that one match.

Anyway, I know I’m not talking exactly about the same kind of stuff, but “plans” are not definitely going to happen, they are usually formulated by somebody taking a shit having some wandering thoughts.

I appreciate your well written and reasonable counterpoint, I really do, it’s something that is too often missing and a treasure.

With regards to the Sheamus and Christian things, yes, there were people who were genuinely perplexed by these 2 decisions and I respect that, but I would say the overwhelming majority were just completely on wwe’s ass for the sake of being on wwe’s ass. I thought it would have made sense for Jericho to be the one with all that build up, but Sheamus was a nice curve ball. With regards to the idea that it didn’t do too much for him, I disagree, not because that I think his reign with the belt was awesome (it wasn’t), but because of the big picture thing. You look at all the greatest superstars in wwe and go through all of their accolades but in my opinion there is one thing that will always make them stand out: A royal rumble win. It is a one off honour that only one person can win in one year and you see Austin has 3, hbk, hogan and cena have 2, when taker won I thought it was acknowledgement more for his legacy than it was for him main eventing mania, he deserved this prestigious honour. I think people forget the honour of being a royal rumble winner because it is all about wrestlemania. It isn’t in my opinion, it’s about winning something at the expense of everyone else in the one year, even if he didn’t win the belt, he would still have that rumble. ADR may go down in history as a flop of sorts, but he will always be in illustrious company as a rr winner, as will Sheamus. It wasn’t just missing out on Mania this year that was a disservice to Bryan, it was not getting his name on that list of greats at the best chance for him to be in that company. Maybe next year for him, but it’s a big honour, just winning the match. If the winners got a royal rumble belt people would think about it differently.

With Christian, I felt the same initially, deflated, but then I was secretly delighted because I could see him going into a program, in my opinion he was elevated more by losing the belt than he was by winning it, because he basically won it against a guy who couldn’t beat the former champion who beat him even though he was ready for retirement. It was a great moment, but it really wasn’t much more than Khali winning a batlle royale for the vacant title – he never beat the champ. Regardless of moment or the match quality, he just won a match for a belt because someone had to retire. If he beat a champion ADR, it would have been different, it was still special, but he didn’t beat a champ. Still though, the uproar may have been absolutely mental in many ways but I like to think that in this instance, the fans certainly did play a part, I might have guessed Christian was turning heel to get the belt back but I was secretly worried that he was just going to be knocked down to mid card purgatory.

Yeah I can see the way people felt the way they did about these things, but I think too many are just ready to go RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE right away without a willingness to look at the big picture, and just mad because “what was supposed to happen” didn’t happen. Thank you for your reply without resorting to labeling me a wwe mark or something stupid like that XD

While everyone praises your diatribe against Hijack Raw I found it both ridiculous and hypocritical.
First off, you’re assuming that every single person in that arena was part of this grand conspiracy from a stupid twitter handle. As the guy who went last night said above, he didn’t even know about it til today.
Second, you come up with all these reasons why they shouldn’t have been cheering for CM Punk but its CHICAGO. Even if CM Punk was there they still would’ve chanted his name a million times during the show. Do you not remember MITB? Also as I recall, every arena for the past 3 weeks has cheered CM Punk at one time or another it just happened a lot more last night. Because its CHICAGO.
Third, the hypocritical part: You bash these “hijackers” for complaining about what they want to see as fans and they go on for 15 minutes about what you want to see as a fan. Do you REALLY want to see Orton and Batista in the Main Event? Because I don’t know a single person does.
Your blind allegiance to WWE by basically saying “whatever they do is cool with me because I love it!” is childish and boring.

While I generally agree that Brandon’s railing against #HijackRaw was pretty irritating on Twitter, I’d say he explained it pretty well here.

You’re totally right that a lot of people in that crowd probably didn’t give a shit about any “civil disobedience,” or even know it was happening. And that Chicago crowd would have done pretty much the same thing anyway.

But the fact that someone tried to organize it, rather than let it happen organically is… off-putting. Especially since a lot of what they were “organizing” was exactly what WWE wants (nuclear heat for HHH/Steph, for example).

Put it this way: Orton and Bootista will get heckled terribly at Mania. It will be totally organic, and it’ll be awesome. And there won’t be any self-important guy thinking that he had anything to do with it because he posted a list of “cheering guidelines” on Twitter the night before.

You would think it goes without saying that he wasn’t accusing every single person in the crowd of being in on a “conspiracy”. He was talking about the people who went there with a folded up cheat sheet in the pocket telling them how to stick it to the man.

And accusing Brandon of having a blind allegiance to WWE? You must be new here.

I know nothing about the hijackraw movement per se other than the document Brandon posted. No where on that document did I see it say give the authority nuclear heat. The only thing I saw it say was turn your back on them. It appears to me that the effort to organize didn’t even really work. The heat for the authority was organic and pretty cool. I’m just not sure why everyone keeps saying that this “movement” or whatever was encouraging the crowd to “boo the heels.” Again, this is based solely on the document that Brandon posted. So if there are other points or something, very well.

That’s funny, because I just happened to notice that I couldn’t see any of Brie’s tattoos anymore. Her trunks used to be cut low enough that you could see a little bit. So I don’t think they’re *too* revealing. Aksana’s outfit is probably the most non-PG.

I’m a little surprised and increasingly annoyed by the “CM Punk is a selfish asshole for leaving” comments. Of course he does seem like kind of a selfish asshole, but keep in mind that he’s pissed off about the same general things that most of us here are pissed off about: Namely that the WWE clings to Cena, Orton and now Bootista at the expense of turning it over to its new-era stars. Again, I know with Punk that this sentiment is mostly centered on C.M. Punk, but this is a guy who’s loved wrestling, who during the Summer of Punk went to Florida to face Ambrose just because he thought Dean deserved a push. Not saying anyone should feel sorry for a guy who has a lot of money and gets to plow A.J., but I think we should at least have some appreciation for Punk’s frustrations, since most of us air the same ones on a weekly basis.

The best commentary I’ve seen about Punk has come from Jim Ross, both in his own blog and on a Grantland podcast a month ago when he walked. Of course Ross went through Stone Cold’s mid-life crisis, so he has some unique perspective. If you haven’t read/heard J.R.’s comments, I’d encourage you to find them.

Nobody but Punk really knows what Punk’s frustrations are but Punk himself. That said, I think Punk’s being selfish, but I don’t really care. He can do practically whatever he wants, I’ll disconnect most of his real life behavior I don’t like in favor of his performance which I do like. He’s gone, fine. He’s back (and in top form), great.

what you said, johnny slider. and overall, punk has been the performer with the best mic work and storytelling ability in wrestling that I’ve seen in my life. the man pretty much is litterally the best of all time, to me.

But keep fighting the good fight on the internet. I’m sure you’ll end war, curtail global warming, and barely break a sweat. Back to something important and nuanced- like compiling a list of the worst WCW ppv’s.

Also appreciated Brandon’s comment on the Shield. Maybe they won’t actually break up. Maybe at WM we’ll see a Macho Man-Liz type reconciliation where Reigns and Ambrose parade around the ring with Glue Guy Rollins on their shoulders…

First off: Huge B/W fan. My buddies and I come up with our own each week and see how many we hit and miss on. Definitely makes up for some of the lackluster proudct.
That being said:
I’m from Chicago, I was in that crowd, and I think the whole #HijackRaw twitter and groups were blown out of proportion. Despite 10K followers, most people in the arena had no idea about this creep’s “manifesto” and a lot of the comments on that Twitter were from out-of-state and out-of-country users tweeting their support to “stick it to the man” for the rest of the world. The guy had a lot of numbers, but they were empty numbers, and everyone saw the word hijack and assume Chicago was going to collectively shit themselves. Whether Punk was there or not he would have gotten most of those cheers last night. His name dominated most of Payback until he had his comeback match w/ Jericho. But to say the crowd was worse than Green Bay? Or bad in any way? The underlying goal, and I think the goal of most hotter crowds lately, has been to elevate underutilized talent. Did you hear the pops Ziggler, the Usos, Cesaro, Bryan, Shield/Wyatts got? Did you hear the heat that Cena and anyone Authority related got? Like you said, they’ve loving the heat backstage, but not much was out of place last night. Nobody was chanting JBL or Randy Savage during good matches or anything worth a damn. Batista got nuclear heat because everyone has despised Hans Moleman since he came back. The WWE put a ridiculously solid program in front of us last night (Minus the Comedy guys and their girlfriends match and the Sheamus/Christian match) and the crowd responded accordingly. Sure we were loud, sure we were raucous, but we also showed respect to the guys who bust their tails and deserve to be cheered.

Honestly, aside from way too much “CM PUNK!” and that shit with Sheamus and Christian I thought you guys were fine. Not as good as previous shows, but still ok. Loved the “YES!”ing you guys gave Cena when he said he wouldn’t wrestle.

I will be honest, I’ve been loving the Christian-Sheamus feud. Just to clarify why I hated it it, Hard-hitting wrestling is something I’ve missed and been very happy to see w/ Langston/Cesaro last week and Christian/Sheamus the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately, it’s been much of the same these last 2 weeks (until the badass backstage attack). I’m still hoping we get some sort of novelty match at Mania because I DO believe they could put on something physical and awesome, but so far their matches have regressed in substance because their first one was so good.
Also, yeah, I just think people read wayy too much into 1 kid on twitter who was able to get several thousand people around the world to become his sheep. Suddenly he became the voice of chicago even though less than a thousand people in that group were even going to the show. Sure, he told people what to cheer, but it wasn’t even innovative…it was stuff the crowds have been chanting lately regardless. This is just somebody who saw his followers go up and assumed he was the new voice of the voiceless. Unless it was CM Punk…then, great troll job! lmao

I’m with the Robot, Sheamus/Christian in the battle of the injured reservists has been enjoyable so far. I think they have good chemistry I don’t understand why people think they’re boring when ADR is standing right there doing nothing!

I think the feud is great, but after an awesome first match, their other 2 matches were carbon copies of each other. i was thankful they did an angle on Friday with an interference because it was different, but then we got the same match again. I despise ADR, that’s a whole different story, but it’s for similar reasons, most of his matches are carbon copies of each other. IDC that we will see the same sequences and spots, but I shouldn’t be able to sit and call the whole match from my couch in the right order. I really do enjoy this feud as I said in my original unnecessarily long first post haha, because it is very hard-hitting and gives two guys without much to do an opportunity to show how badass they can be. Love heel christian, love sheamus that doesn’t talk much or act like a muppet, just really would prefer to have seen their matches get stretched out and have other forms of involvement. That or change up the matches.

I’m actually holding out hope that Zig, ADR, Christian and Sheamus all do a “doe see doe” and switch off partners for WM. I just cannot f*cking stand when WWE builds up a match by showing it to you ad nauseum. Seeing Christian vs Sheamus on RAW, then Smackdown, and a few more times on Main Event and Saturday Morning F*cking Slam or whatever makes me actively NOT want to see it again on a PPV.

So what kind of crowd is exceptable? You complain when they chant nothing, you complain when they chanted everything. WM 28, Did Kane and Orton deserve to have their match hijacked by the fans? Yet it was okay to everybody. I just don’t understand sometimes.

You guys are taking these things WAY out of context. WM 28 featured a shitty, pointless match after the WHC Daniel Bryan jobbed in 18 seconds. What was supposed to be a main event that people paid to see and was heavily promoted ENDED IN UNDER A MINUTE!

No one ever said “Yes, PUNK WILL LEGIT BE HERE TONIGHT!” It was dirt sheet bs at best. Punk left on his own, it wasn’t the company fucking with him whether he thinks so or not. CM Punk chants filled the arena for no reason. He wasn’t there. He didn’t care enough. He didn’t care at all. Leaving/not coming back was Punk’s choice. Do you think Daniel Bryan got to make a choice on losing in 18 seconds? There is a difference in the context. So yeah, when Brandon did it, it was in outrage because WWE had billed this huge match and not delivered AND it was one of the best guys on the roster against THE best guy on the roster in what they proved at Extreme Rules could have been a great Mania match up. The fans didn’t get their money’s worth at Mania. Punk wasn’t billed to be there last night and everyone knew that going in. They could have demanded refunds and Vince would have given them. They acted like jackasses chanting for someone who wasn’t there and wasn’t supposed to be. Make any excuse you want for Punk or the Chicago crowd, but Brandon is definitely not wrong on this one.

Also, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have a Twitter account set up, along with a manifesto telling people to chant for Bryan the night after WM28. The whole “YES!” thing (I’m sure) was an organic thing, not some sort of micro-managed protest movement thing or whatever.

I think I’m just going to disconnect for a while. Between dirt sheets, fantasy booking, and people telling me who to cheer for and how (that goes for both the #hijackRaw guy and you, Brandon) I can’t enjoy any new wrestling anymore. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop and calculating what I’ve read or heard or something else; I just want to watch wrestling. Sadly I think the only way someone (me) can do that now is to actively avoid every aspect of the IWC.

Shoemaker is if the Yankees merged with Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Lakers. I’d say you are at least a hybrid of early 90s Buffalo Bills, the Mavericks, the Angels, the Whale, and Jim Harbaugh.

Shoemaker is if the Yankees merged with Manchester United, the Dallas Cowboys, and the Lakers. I’d say you are at least a hybrid of early 90s Buffalo Bills, the Mavericks, the Angels, the Whale, and Jim Harbaugh.

I dunno — I thought the Chicago crowd was just a fun loud wrestling crowd who wanted their hometown guy to be there. They briefly crapped on one good match, otherwise this was nowhere near Green Bay levels of confused. If the hijack Raw memo hadn’t shown up online beforehand, would anybody have thought any different?

I agree with all of this. The crowd seemed better than average apart from being rude to that good Sheamus match, and being annoying over the Wyatt video. I hadn t heard of this hijack raw thing before Brandon told me.

I agree 100%. I was actually a little down with the crowd at the start of that Sheamus/Christian match, but then everyone else went so crazy on them I ended up defending Chicago for the last hour or so. It was a ridiculous overreaction to the #hijack nonsense.

I agree with Nate and Mr. Ballins. In my opinion Chicago is, and will continue to be a great wrestling crowd. It would be unrealistic to expect them not to chant like crazy for Punk while this saga of his unknown status plays out. And as for the Sheamus/Christian thing, I honestly think it was more a case of Chicago by and large representing the portion of the fan base that is just not amused by Sheamus and his fightin’ and pintin’ act. They should have found another chant, but it’s hard to chant: “Hey your in ring work is good but your character is stale and petulant and childish!” Poor Christian was just collateral damage. That wasn’t fair, and the match wasn’t awful, but they also had to go out there not long after the Shield Wyatt clash and before all the important authority stuff – that slot was a tough sell for any match, especially one with no meaningful storyline.

Yes, if you’re going with the narrowest possible definition it wasn’t WWE’s “fault” Punk is gone, in that they didn’t directly fire him or send him home. But there’s more to the story than that, and they definitely don’t seem to be bending backwards to get him back.

If Chicago *didn’t* chant for Punk, what message would that send the WWE? That even his most ardent supporters don’t care, so good riddance. So Chicago is forced to chant for their guy even though they know he’s being a bit of a butthole. The alternative is a public show of no-confidence in a dude who’s always passionately supported the city until his brain broke and he had to go home. It was a situation where natural reactions kind of couldn’t happen — it was artificially pump up the Punk chants, or s–t on the guy who made Chicago the wrestling hotbed it now is.

Chicago convinced themselves the rumors were true and Punk was showing up — hell, the entire internet did too. And ultimately I think they just sort of doubled down on cheering Punk, even though he’s been completely radio silent since his walk-out. As you said, they had to support him. I feel like even though they know he’s being a butthole, he’s THEIR butthole. And what do you do to your own butthole? Um, you chant at it, loudly! Wow, that one went off the rails quick.

Foxsana would be a great team! I dismiss a lot of the Raw women because I’ve absorbed WWE’s general apathy towards them, but if they gave Alicia and Aksana personalities and a reason to team up it’d be a huge step in the right direction. I know they’re never going to do shit with the division, but just a minute of character development would do wonders.

“The Best here goes to Big John, who once again reiterates that any hopeful WWE Superstar must first gain expressed, written approval from one JOHN CENA before dreaming dreams…”

Forgive me; I didn’t get a chance to listen to the Cena promo from last night, but the way you described it made it seem like it should be getting a Worst, especially since it seems to be implying that John Cena explicitly said what we all kind of knew and grudgingly accepted: that it’s JOHN CENA and then its everyone else. Outside of that niggle, everything was wonderful, as per usual.

I would have much rather have “FUCK YOU PUNK”, and “PUNK SOLD OUT” chants. Not appearing in Chicago was the last straw. Dude took his ball and went home. Least he could do was work out some way to come back and say goodbye to his fans in the ring.